Wizard/Magician Archetype

How does a person make a dream come true? People attempt to fulfill their dreams through hard work and their own natural talents and resources, but often realize they fall short of reaching their ultimate dream. In an attempt to bridge the gap between dream and reality, individuals have created supernatural characters in fictional works, thus living out their dreams in fiction. Others have discovered their "magical" powers by creating or demonstrating extraordinary traits in reality. The human urge to wish for the supernatural has prompted the creation of the wizard and magician archetype. Wizards and magicians such as Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and Orpheus from Greek Mythology exemplify this mysterious archetype that appears in all types of art.

A man or woman that embodies the magician/wizard archetype often shows an extent knowledge of the the world they live in and uses this information to search and solve problems that others cannot. The person also causes transformations, either magical or seemingly magical which often creates results outside nature. But the magician and the wizard can be defined slightly differently. The magician tends to lean towards being the entertainer with magic while the wizard usually demonstrates supernatural powers or goes against nature. Houdini would be an example of the magician or entertainer while Merlin is an example of a wizard.

In the basic premise of the archetype the wizard or magician generally overcomes the temptation to manipulate his/her powers for their own personal gain. After doing so he/she uses the powers and knowledge for greater good that benefits others. Sometimes though the wizard or magician succumbs to the tempation and misues their gifts. As a result the wizard or magician transforms into a shadow wizard or magician, a variation of the archetype. An example of the shadow wizard is Saruman from The Lord of the Rings, the mentor of Gandalf and later a juxaposition of the good in Gandalf. Both the wizard or magician and the shadow wizard or magician appear in countless stories, films, cultures, and real life.

The wizard and magician archetype is utilized in numerous stories and even in real life; it importantly demonstrates the human dream of obtaining supernatural powers.

Merlin
Merlin lived as a child born fatherless. At the age of seven, Merlin was brought before the king, who needed the blood of a fatherless boy to keep the castle walls from collapsing. Merlin told the king that if he dug underneath the wall he would find two dragons fighting, the reason behind collapsing walls. The king then dug underneath the walls and as Merlin expected, two dragons were in the midst of a heated battle. The act of him knowing of the dragons was Merlin’s first display of his magical powers. Though a mere boy at the time, he had the ability to see farther what others could. Throughout his life Merlin's magical and mysterious abilities of foresight exemplifed the wizard archetype. His first act proved his magivcal abilities, and making him appear very wise, powerful and all knowing. Since he applied his powers for the greater good of others rather than for himself, he demonstrates one of the main characters the archetype itself is based off of.

Merlin

David Blaine
At four years old, David Blaine saw a magician performing in a subway, and from that moment on he fell in love with magic. His perfoms magic to benefit good causes as well as to excite and expand the minds of his many fans. His tricks include crying a diamond out of his eye, living underwater for a week, and displaying levitation. David shows the magician archetype as an entertainer or as an illusionist, and even though his tricks are not true magic in a sense that he does not create results outside of nature, he displays seemingly magical abilities that seem to go against nature.

The Dragon King

Dragon King, the ancient and powerful god of the sea. was one of the pivotal characters in the ancient Korean myth of Shim Chung. As the story goes the beautiful daughter of Mr. Shim Chung was required to sacrifice herself in order for her father to regain his eyesight. In the myth the Dragon King feels compassion toward the young maiden, and after she had thrown herself into the water, he captures her in a giant lotus and sends her back to the land. The powerful sea god reverses the very nature of death to bring her back. Not only does he save her from death, he also returns Mr. Shim Chung’s sight back, which occurred as a magical tranformation, or a miracle. As a result of utilizing his powers of transformation and by going against nature for the benefit of the world, the Dragon King fits perfectly as an example of the archetype in mythology. The slight difference of the Dragon King from other examples of the archetype is that in the myth the Dragon King was a god, not a mortal.

Houdini

Houdini is known today as the greatest escape artist in history. Through his so-called magical abilities, Houdini became the master magician of the United States and Europe with his amazing performances. His seemingly nature-defying tricks and solutions to problems when in a "bind" demonstrates the traits of a real-life version of the archetype as an entertainer. The fact that Houdini used his mystical talents for the entertainment and wonder of his audiences further exhibits that he shows the magician archetype.

Saruman
Saruman started out pretending to be a rival of the antagonist Sauron, but later it is found out that Saruman was working for Sauron. Saruman is a prime example of a shadow wizard, a variation to the regular wizard archetype. He has the powers of a regular wizard though. The extents of his powers are not really known, all that is known is that his powers are strong and nearly unmatched. Saruman is a shadow wizard because he succumbed to the temptation and started to use his powers for his own personal benefit, which forced the perpetrators of good to strip him of his staff, the source of his magic powers.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein, one of the most famous scientists in human history, discovered and proved many of the great powers and forces that rule our world today. Einstein, being the perfect example of a magician in the relm of science, showed his powers of perseption and deduction from a young age. Einstein was eventually able to realize a major base for science that many of the greatist scientists could not have even imagined, proving he could do incredible things that no other human being could do at that time. Though he did not alter nature directly, Einstein altered drastically today's view of nature, thus he fits the archetype.